Funviralpark Baton Rouge, Louisiana — The U.S. Coast Guard spent hours searching the waters off the Louisiana coast looking for four people aboard a helicopter that crashed while leaving an oil platform on Thursday.
“It’s always a difficult decision to suspend a search,” said the lieutenant colonel. Kevin Keefe, Coast Guard Sector New Orleans Search and Rescue Mission Coordinator. It was not immediately clear if the search would resume on Friday morning.
Petty Officer Jose Hernandez, spokesman for the Coast Guard’s 8th District, which is headquartered in New Orleans, said around 8:40 a.m. CST, a helicopter pilot and three oil workers crashed in the Gulf of Mexico. said.
“So far we’ve only found debris, no people,” Hernandez said. Pictures of the debris released by the Coast Guard showed clusters of cylindrical yellow objects bobbing in the water.
One of the missing workers is 36-year-old David Scarborough of Lisanna, Mississippi, according to his wife Lacy Scarborough. He said he was promoted.
Her family prayed for her husband and others to be rescued safely.
“He enjoyed his job and his colleagues,” she said.
Boat and helicopter crews searched an area of approximately 180 square miles (460 square kilometers) for eight hours.
Hernandez said the weather did not appear to be a factor in the crash, as there were no reports of storms in the area on Thursday.
The helicopter crashed about 10 miles (16 km) off the coast of the Southwest Pass, a shipping lane at the mouth of the Mississippi River southeast of New Orleans. Helicopters routinely transport workers to and from oil platforms in the Gulf.
Hernandez said the oil platform is operated by Houston-based Walter Oil and Gas. The Associated Press reached out to a spokesperson for the company, but was not immediately available for comment.
The National Transportation Safety Board said it was investigating the crash.
Two weeks ago, the Coast Guard rescued three people after a helicopter crashed off the coast of Louisiana while trying to land on an oil rig platform. The collision occurred on December 15, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) west of the area the Coast Guard was searching Thursday and south of Terrebon Bay.
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Associated Press writer Russ Bynum of Savannah, Georgia contributed to this article.
